Thursday, March 28, 2013

Timely

The shroud of Turin is to be shown on television for the first time in 30 years on Easter Saturday as a new claim that the four-metre-long linen cloth dates from ancient times proves its enduring ability to fascinate and perplex.

As what the Vatican described as his parting gift to the Roman Catholic church before he resigned, Benedict XVI signed off on a special 90-minute broadcast of the shroud that will take place from Turin cathedral and be introduced in a brief preamble by his successor, Pope Francis.
"It will be a message of intense spiritual scope, charged with positivity, which will help hope never to be lost," said the archbishop of Turin, Cesare Nosiglia.

Timed to mark the 30th anniversary of the shroud's last appearance on TV – ordered by Pope Paul VI in 1973 – the unusual programme on the state broadcaster Rai comes as the new pope, the former cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, prepares for his first Easter as head of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.